The overall goal of the ISTRA project is to develop and market a computer-based speech training system for the improvement of the speech production of impaired populations. During an initial project, the Indiana Speech Training Aid (ISTRA) curriculum was implemented on a PC microcomputer equipped with a speaker-dependent speech recognition board. Feedback concerning the quality of speech production is based on a goodness-of-fit metric. This metric represents the similarity between a new utterance and a stored template representing the best recent effort to produce those same utterances. Syllables or words used to form the templates are selected by speech pathologists using standard diagnostic and assessment methods, and are periodically updated as speech intelligibility improves. Over 50 hearing-impaired, and normal-hearing but misarticulating children have been shown to achieve significantly Unproved speech production under ISTRA speech drill. Research on the technical merits of the speech recognition board used in the first project found it deficient in several ways. Support is requested for funds to investigate new speech recognition algorithms. Specifically, standard criteria for the evaluation of speech recognition systems to be used with impaired populations will be developed. This will included the completion of a speech database appropriate for speech-training applications. Three technologically advanced speech recognition boards will be investigated using these criteria. In addition, a software simulation similar to one of these recognizers will be developed.